What Kelvin Sampson said was the key for Houston to finally win it all: ‘Be fearless’
In this story:
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson was the first guest on a debut college basketball podcast Tuesday hosted by CBS Sports analyst Jon Rothstein.
Sampson talked to Rothstein about a variety of topics leading up to next week’s NCAA Tournament, including what tournament time means to the coach, on if the team has exceeded Sampson’s expectations and if finally winning a national title cements his legacy.
Here are some of the comments Sampson made to Rothstein:
On what March Madness means to Sampson:
“It’s graduation day in some ways. Your new kids get here in June, and returning players are with them for the first time that summer school starts, at least that first Monday in June. Then you’re in all your classes through the summer. Then once you get to September, it gets a little more serious. You start taking mid-terms.
“Then October, November, you get ready for games. November represents the start of a new season, and then you just build. You fall down, you get back up, you build some more. You may fall down again. But ultimately, but the time you get to Christmas, the outline of who you are is coming into play. And so when you start conference play, you’ve got to know where the pitfalls are, strengths and weaknesses of your team and just keep building. By the time you get to March, you know, it’s exciting.
“I’m excited for a guy like (junior point guard and Oklahoma transfer) Milos Uzan, who has never played in the tournament. I’m excited for (freshmen) Mercy (Miller) and Chase (McCarty) and Kordelius (Jefferson), who has never seen the NCAA Tournament. So just a lot of the excitement, you can tell that Selection Sunday’s right around the corner, because everything these kids do, they’re a little more giddy, they’re excited.”
Houston to lose one of its basketball assistants to head coaching job
On if Sampson exceeded his own expectations with his team:
(Despite losing point guard and team leader Jamal Shead, and starting the season 4-3, Houston has now won 23 of its last 24 games and went 19-1 in Big 12 play.)
“I think we just try to meet our standards every day. I think what we try to do, whether we’re really good at it or not, there’s an interpretation I guess, but we’ve always gotten our kids and coaching staff to focus on exactly what’s in front of us, and while in (Rothstein’s) business and fans have fun projecting or guessing two games down the road, we’ve always just stayed in the moment. I think that’s what good teams have to do.
“You can’t think about, well, we’ve got to win this one because look who we play next. You know, we don’t think that way; we play the game we play. … Just stand in the moment, focusing on the game in front of you and get your team to be a team. I think those were my expectations.
“I don’t have a miracle or end of the year record or Big 12 championship. Sure, those are always the goal, but if that’s all your talking about, you lose sight of what’s most important and that’s today’s struggles, today’s battle, today’s the day we have to win today. So this team, this team became good at that once we established who our leaders were.”
Houston remains in excellent shape to land a top NCAA Tournament seed
On what has allowed graduate guard LJ Cryer to take his game to a completely different level:
(Cryer is the Cougars’ leading scorer and was also named to the All-Big 12 first team.)
“I think maturity and how serious he takes practice. When we got back from Vegas and we were 4-3, and we looked at the big picture of why we were 4-3, the thing I remember is Milos fractured his nose and had to have surgery. He missed three weeks prior to us leaving to go and I think he would up fouling out. He fouled out of the Auburn game, he fouled out of the Alabama game and he fouled out at the San Diego State game. He was out of shape; he wasn’t ready, ready to go. Ja’Vier Francis missed 19 consecutive days of practice with a groin (injury).
“So I knew our team was going to get better as we went, because we needed to get healthy, but playing Auburn was such a great experience for us, because we didn’t lose that game, we got beat. They beat us, they were better than us that night. Alabama, we had the ball to win the game in regulation and called time out. … We had the last shot, didn’t make it and goes into overtime. Then San Diego State, just tough. They were really tough, but all three of those games helped us.
“So once we got back, I sat down and had a talk with LJ and I said, ‘LJ, you’ve go to stop sitting in the back seat or the front seat. You’ve got to get under the steering wheel, man; you’ve got to have your voice, you’ve got to hold the guys accountable, just because you never have a bad practice,’ and he never does. He and Marcus Sasser are so similar in how serious they take each day and you like to see kids have success that have earned it.
“LJ has really earned the right to succeed now. J’Wan (Roberts) has been a fixture in this program for so many years. … This is J’Wan’s team, but our leader has been LJ. But those two guys combined, as seniors, have carried us, especially on the road.”
Houston's Kelvin Sampson named Big 12 Coach of the Year for second straight season
On Sampson’s emotional moment when honoring J’Wan Roberts on Senior Night:
(Sampson and Roberts had a lengthy embrace when the latter was honored before the Cougars' Senior Night game earlier this month.)
“My family and my faith have always been important to me, but my hobbies don’t come after that. My enjoyable moments in life don’t really come after that. My players and my team come next; I’m committed to them. And J’Wan’s unique; we registered him his first year, so we knew he was going to have five (years) and then because of COVID, it gave him an extra year. And he could have left and went elsewhere, but he decided to stay. He invested in us.
“And when you have an investment that goes both ways, and there’s an ironclad commitment both ways, that was more of an appreciation for that kid sticking with us and having success at the end. Seeing his mother and his father and his sisters and his family there seeing that, I got emotional, but it was out of love and the mutual respect we have for each other.”
On how often the thought of finally winning a national championship crosses Sampson’s mind:
“I was texting with (Michigan State coach) Tom Izzo the other night and I came across something on my phone about Jud Heathcote (former Michigan State coach whom Sampson worked for as a graduate assistant) and I sent it to Tom and he sent me a long text back and we were just talking about our journeys from Jud, getting us started. … The sun is setting on our careers.
“We don’t know how much time we have left, but I think as my career is winding down here, would I like to have a national championship? And please understand, I mean this with all seriousness, I see what our players go through. I think if we won a national championship, I would be more happy for our players, but not me. My career doesn’t need to have one for me.
“Now, other people may have to have it to validate me in their mind, but relationships I’ve built through the years with our players at every school I coached, having two grandkids that I absolutely adore and love spending time with, I’ve learned to enjoy life a little bit more. I would like to make a good run at it, but you know, like when Jamal (Shead) sprained his ankle (during the 2024 NCAA Tournament), you know how fragile it is. You know how easy it could come and it could go. So if God blesses us with that opportunity, that would be awesome, and I’d be happy for my family and my players and all my former players, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m still the most blessed guy in the world when it comes to coaching basketball.”
Sampson asked on what are the biggest keys for Houston to get back to a Final Four and winning that elusive national title:
“I think staying locked in on scouting reports, little things. Our staff does an awesome job preparing our kids with our scouts and having our kids play fearless. Be fearless.
“I remember talking about it in the huddles, I think on the road in Tucson when we played Arizona, be fearless in taking that shot and shoot it. But don’t shoot it and hope it goes in. Shoot it in knowing if it doesn’t go in, we’ve got a chance to go get the offensive rebound, but you shoot that shot, and LJ stepped back and hit two big 3’s down the stretch and Milos made a big 3.
“But I want us to continue to play with the fearlessness and the confidence that it was like in those old Westerns when guys come off that cattle drive and couldn’t wait to get to the saloon to get whatever it is they were looking for, but they swing those doors open, they walk in there just wanting to fight somebody. That’s an attitude, so I want our guys to swing those doors open and look for a fight and be fearless.”
